Mirrored
by KrysSaiyan
Summary: Optimus Prime and Starscream meet for the first time during the war. Subsequent meetings cast suspicion on them both. Before the war began, there was an archivist model from a dockside shipping company who caught the attention of a jaded scientist...
1. Jealousy

"I don't remember calling for you, Starscream," the Decepticon commander murmured as his newly-appointed second in command entered without warning – more importantly, without permission. The new rank was good for the ambitious and ruthless seeker. It was for that reason alone that Megatron didn't scold him for the impertinence.  
"I wanted to see the prisoner you're so proud of," Starscream wheedled, already tilting his head and examining the mech with unveiled curiousity.  
"It's hardly worth the effort," Megatron drawled, retreating from where he had been kicking the chained-down mech.  
"I can see why." Starscream stepped fearlessly up to the prisoner and crouched, steadfast in his examination. "This hardly _looks_ like the feared Autobot commander."

"It is. It's been confirmed." Megatron turned away dismissively, and in doing so, missed what transpired between his new second in command and the mech who would quickly become his greatest enemy and obsession.

Optimus Prime turned his head, scraping the battered mask that covered his face against the floor. His optics focused on Starscream's and betrayed no emotion beyond stubborn determination, but flared a brilliant white-blue.

Starscream, on the other hand, was open with his expression. Curiousity and surprise mixed freely on his face, and his hand reached towards the Autobot's plating as if to confirm something.

"Starscream," Megatron called, and the seeker snatched his hand back before the warlord turned and looked at them, taking a seat to observe. "Feel free to… entertain yourself." Starscream smirked.

Optimus Prime was silent throughout, only his optics dimming and brightening with each blow. By the time Megatron called for a halt, Prime's plating was bent in multiple places. Even Megatron had not struck as often as Starscream.

The Decepticon seeker straightened from the last round of blows and stood at loose attention. At Megatron's beckon, Starscream came to his side, as loyal as any soldier programmed for the barracks, while Optimus Prime remained loosely curled in on himself on the floor.

It hurt, and ached, but Optimus didn't waver in his baleful glare, even as Starscream draped himself in Megatron's lap with casual ease; even as Megatron rewarded the seeker with a precise caress.

As disgusting as it was, Optimus did not look away. He stared, up until the point at which their chest plating loosened and parted. Then, the loathing he felt overwhelmed his pride, and he averted his gaze.

Megatron laughed. "As to be expected from an Autobot!" Optimus remained silent, and the Decepticon commander scoffed. "Ah, well. We'll see how well those delicate sensibilities hold up, won't we Starscream?"

Megatron turned his attention back to the seeker, only to see that Starscream was staring at the prisoner intently. Silently, Megatron took hold of his second's chin and turned Starscream's face toward his own.

He was unaccustomed to that blank, distracted stare, especially from the normally sharp Air Commander. Just prior, he could have Starscream's full attention by simply snapping his fingers.

When Starscream glanced back at the Autobot, it was his first act of outright disobedience.

Megatron flung the seeker from his lap with a sneer. "If you're so _distracted_, Starscream," he growled, standing over his startled soldier, "You only needed to ask for more play time."

"Lord Megatron-" Starscream began, but it was futile. Megatron was already leaving, the door sliding shut at his back. With a curse, Starscream kicked at the chair his Lord had vacated, but then got back to his feet and occupied that same seat, bent over with his elbows on his knees, hands folded and chin set on top of them.

Starscream's optics were bright with interest, and he was staring unwaveringly at the still-silent Autobot leader, who stared back just as steadily.

"You're interesting," Starscream blurted out after a long stretch of contemplative silence. "Why?"

Optimus merely stayed as he was: quiet, and still, but obviously conscious. Starscream responded by snarling and smashing a fist against the arm of the chair. "Say something!"

"Something."

Optimus Prime's voice was clear and deep, and completely unmarred by static or hitches from his time imprisoned or the damage he had sustained in the battle beforehand. Starscream was unimpressed and _certainly_ not amused.

"I suppose you think you're clever," Starscream sneered nastily."And courageous, for staying silent."

"Not at all," Optimus Prime interrupted. "I'm neither of those things."

"So you think you're _humble_, then," Starscream concluded, looking even more disgusted than before. Optimus didn't respond. "Or worse, you're _selfless_. I shouldn't be surprised. The leader of the Autobots _would_ so exemplify their disgusting ideals. I suppose it explains why so many of you are flinging yourselves into our prisons and cannonfire"

Starscream pushed himself off the chair and stood with all the inherent grace of his frame type and stalked in a circle around Optimus Prime's prone form, optics never straying from their focus on him.

"Do I know you?" he murmured.

"I should hope so," Optimus Prime replied. "It wouldn't say much for your processing power if you couldn't remember who I am." It earned him another kick in the side, one he bore with little more than a flinch.

"I meant before the war, you moron," Starscream spat. His ever-mercurial mood shifted again and his voice was slightly smoother, less of an indignant and angry squawk. "You seem familiar."

"Never met you before," Optimus Prime answered truthfully. Starscream hummed thoughtfully and continued his circuit around the Autobot.

"You're being rather forthright," the seeker noted. "You weren't as talkative with Megatron." A smirk. "I suppose I _am_ more persuasive."

"You didn't seem as much of a threat. Who are you again?"

A low groan crawled from his throat after one of the many resulting blows hit a dent in his plating that had been deepened twice before.

"I am more of a threat than Megatron ever will be!" Starscream seethed, absolutely livid even after the beating stopped. His vent slats were wide open to exhale angry heat, optics bright as he loomed over the Autobot prisoner who looked up at him impassively. He crouched suddenly, his face close to Optimus Prime's, and continued in a low hiss.

"I could kill you right now. You may be stupid, but you're not _that_ stupid. I could kill you, and Megatron will be angry with me for robbing him of that pleasure, but I think I'd be doing him a favor. You're not worth his time. You should be begging me to allow _him _to kill you instead of me, Autobot."

Starscream's words were laced with dark promise, his optics the sharp, bright red of cooling slag from the deepest smelters and his mouth quirked in a smirk that could cut armor. Every gesture was a weapon, every puff of spent heat was the recoil on a hot blaster. Heat, and death.

"You think you hurt now," Starscream cooed. "Megatron is all brunt, brute force. Cold, efficient. Clean. I bring a certain… creative flair to the process, that I'm sure you'd appreciate."

"Starscream," Optimus Prime interrupted, unaffected by the visions the seeker was creating. "You're beautiful."

It was more effective than anything else at getting Starscream to shut up. The Decepticon stopped, mouth closed, optics wide and refocusing in shocked confusion, the smirk wiped away. Just as quickly, those optics narrowed again in suspicion and Starscream leaned back.

"If you think that flattery will earn you leniency, you're stupider than I thought." The armor-cutting smirk returned. "Though you can certainly keep complimenting me while I slowly offline you."

"Won't Megatron offline _you_ for robbing him of that pleasure?" Optimus Prime asked, his voice even, as if they weren't discussing who would kill him. It gave Starscream pause again, and Optimus could see the seeker processing the possibility of just that scenario.

"You're not worth killing," Starscream finally decided, looking down at Optimus Prime with a sneer. "Not how you are now." He laughed gratingly as Optimus watched the hysterics with cool, blue optics. "Here, I have a great idea!"

And Optimus was confused, but calm, as he was dragged bodily from the room by a tank Starscream called in. It was a long, and rather painful trip to their destination – a door leading to the blasted and barren landscape of Cybertron outside of the makeshift Decepticon bunker, where Optimus Prime was thrown to the ground like a limp drone.

"The scrap pile," Starscream purred, looking down at the Autobot commander. "A fitting place for you." Optimus Prime merely looked around, taking in the gray, dismembered limbs of countless Cybertronians, spare parts, stripped gears and the ilk; he looked up at the black sky and then lowered his gaze to stare into Starscream's optics.

"Thank you," he said. "I won't forget this."

Starscream's laughter echoed as he left the Autobot leader there to rust amongst the rest of the junk. Each thought the other crazy, and paid no more mind to it.

Starscream was no stranger to Megatron's disciplinary tactics, even so early in his military career, but he was subjected to first one, then another more vicious session, when Megatron found his prisoner taken outside without his permission, and then found that said prisoner was simply _gone_. Escaped, or rescued by one of his Autobots. In Megatron's mind, this was Starscream's first of many betrayals, intentional or not. For Starscream, this was the first of many unjust punishments, and as such, the first of many reasons why Megatron's leadership was beginning to falter.

Optimus returned to the battlefields of Cybertron restored to all his holy, thunderous glory, and led the Autobots through their defeats and handful of victories, all the way into space and to their accidental base on Earth.

Starscream clung to his power jealously, fought viciously to retain it with one hand while reaching for more with the other, wings spread wide to guard over it all. He made the aerial corps a magnificent and terrifying thing to behold, earning an awed fear the flight models had not received since the ancient, massive flight formations Ate The Sky above groundpounders' heads on a semi-regular basis.

Their first encounter turned the course of the war. Earth would lock it into place.


	2. Here I Go, Mumbling

Thank you for all the reviews, alerts, and favorites!

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Orion Pax was the record keeper for Kutonian Freight, the 52nd largest transport company on Cybertron. He handled receipts and shipping orders for his company, and had faithfully done so since his creation. Therefore, it wasn't unsual for him to be sent to deliver invoices personally to clients. His supervisor was a bit on the lazy side, and it was all too easy to pass along those errands onto the employee most eager to travel.

It wasn't that Orion didn't enjoy his job. He did. He was programmed to enjoy it, so of course he could stay in the office long enough to forget the outside world existed, and it never bothered him. But he jumped at the chance to see the outside nonetheless. There was something exciting about even the dull trips to deliver invoices, though it happened too rarely. The only customers who wanted invoices tended to be paranoid about sending them over the city-feed, even encrypted, or else were dealing in unsavory items.

Orion didn't care. He was just a record keeper - and today, a courier.

The stamp on his shoulder identified his occupation to any onlookers, and it was this that let him enter the Database of Iacon unquestioned after his delivery was complete. Orion was technically supposed to return immediately to the office, but with so few deliveries to this city, there was no better time to indulge in a little of his guilty pleasure.

Visiting a library was hardly out of the ordinary for an archivist model, so he looked completely at home in the vast, shining building. It was artificially lit, of course, but it never failed to impress Orion Pax whenever he stepped past its glowing columned entrance. The lighting was, strictly speaking, unnecessary. However, its architect early in the Golden Age had decided to give it an artistic flair. "Illumination," he was reported as having said, "should happen as much outside the body as within."

Orion agreed, despite the bare fact that one didn't need light to plug into one of the hundreds of data terminals.

He found himself wandering the halls, looking for an empty terminal in any of the sub-divided subjects, and having a terrible time of it. He knew the Database was the most popular on all of Cybertron, but couldn't they have installed a few more plug-in points?

"You!"

Orion startled and turned to look, pointing hesitantly at himself. The other patrons threw the speaker dirty looks, but they slid right off his immaculate plating. Orion found himself staring, nearly trembling.

A seeker model strode right up to the much smaller archivist, glaring reproachfully with a tight expression and flared-out body language. Orion couldn't help but remember ancient legends warning of the dangers of seekers, stories of hapless and headstrong mechs wandering into seeker territory to be found later cannibalized for parts, the empty shell left on their perimeter as warning and promise.

"The politics section," the Wings of Death said. "Where is it?"

Orion gaped dumbly, and the seeker frowned harder.

"It's-!" Orion practically squeaked, unable to tear his gaze away but plainly terrified as much as he was entranced. While the other people present didn't seem to notice or care about the presence amongst them, Orion couldn't help but feel a deep-seated awe bloom like a virus in his spark.

"I'm not sure where it is," Orion finally finished. The seeker sneered and stood to his full height again, looking around with quick motions. "Well, you're the most useless archivist I've ever seen." With that, he brushed past Orion and continued on his way, leaving the poor, shaken-up mech to recover on his own and wonder who that seeker was, and why he'd be in Iacon.

Or he would have, if Orion hadn't started trotting after the mech, looking at the seeker's back with wide optics. "We'll find it together," Orion offered, friendly as always, even if it was a little breathless and shaky. The seeker didn't so much as glance at him… which Orion took as a blessing, really. His spark constricted in its casing every time he caught a glance of those red optics.

When the seeker ordered him to fetch some energon after they had been at the terminal for some time, Orion came back with two cubes – both of which the seeker took without thanks. Still, Orion hovered nearby, watching the seeker comb through data on a terminal that should have been _his_, but he found he could live without. It was strangely interesting to observe the way seekers, which from what he read were flighty and short-tempered, could sit at a terminal and stay there concentrating on a subject – for a very long time.

When his tank whined for fuel, the seeker deigned to look up at him, expression tight with displeasure at the interruption.

"Hasn't your shift ended yet?"

"I don't work here."

Orion's bland response had the seeker looking at him with a flicker of surprise… and for the first time, he seemed to be looking at the Orion as a person and not some kind of drone.

"Archivist," the seeker said, looking him up and down with narrow, interested optics that made Orion want to put a protective hand over his spark. "Have you seen me before?"

Immediately, Orion shook his head. "I would have remembered."

This apparently pleased the seeker, as he disconnected momentarily from the terminal and leaned back in the chair to regard Orion more loftily. "Perhaps you're new," he murmured. "You all do look alike."

"I visit, sometimes."

"I would never have guessed." An obvious jab at Orion's model type. Of course an archivist would be in a data repository of some kind, whether they were assigned to it or not. It's how they _were_.

There was a longer pause while the seeker finished his examination, then he finally spoke.

"How often is 'sometimes'?"

Orion's optics reset as he considered that question. "Whenever I can," was the answer. "I have deliveries sometimes that take me to Iacon, when customers want a hardcopy of their tickets and receipts. So I always stop in here. It's wonderful, isn't it?"

"Yes. Wonderful. You work for a private company, then?"

"Kutonian Freight," Orion answered, his mood lifting. His fear of being torn apart on the spot for so much as twitching in the wrong direction was melting away with each small interaction, and being replaced by his more natural inclination for open, trusting friendliness.

Red optics narrowed and a smile that could cut armor curved underneath them.

"I don't believe you've told me your name, little bot," the seeker cooed.

"Orion Pax." He felt his spark clench again, but braved through it. Those optics were terrifying when they focused directly on him, but he still felt drawn in, mesmerized… "What's yours?"

For a moment, he thought he had erred. The seeker's expression shifted from dangerously friendly to dangerously _annoyed_. As if it were Orion's fault he didn't already know. But just as quickly, it shifted back, and he was offered a humoring smirk.

"Starscream."


	3. Saints Into The Sea

Sorry for the long delay between chapters. Hopefully with this chapter I can establish how the rest of the story will be laid out. Thank you again for all the reviews and favorites!

* * *

Coming to the aid of friends was something he was good at, Inferno thought. It was, in the end, what he was _designed_ to do after all, civil service and all. He didn't like to boast or anything (maybe a little, sometimes) but he'd proven himself loyal enough for any one of his fellow Autobots. Red Alert, too.

Especially, even.

So it was that Inferno sat in the monitor room, optics dim and flickering as various video, audio, and data feeds jacked into his processor rather than Red Alert's. It hurt, a familiar ache, but it made him appreciate his friend's specialized equipment all the more, even if it was prone to being… finicky, at times. Red Alert could process data at speeds and quantities rivaled only by Blaster.

But Red Alert wasn't there, and wouldn't be for quite some time. Perhaps until Megatron grew tired of waiting and simply fetched back his soldier himself, Inferno mused, watching with a little more interest as Jazz entered the interrogation room in the belly of the _Ark_. It'd be a long wait, in his opinion. Starscream had already been there for quite awhile, and Megatron seemed glad to be rid of him. There wasn't a point in keeping the Aerial Commander online except for information, and Optimus Prime wouldn't have stood for the usual methods of intel extraction that happened under his predecessors, the ones that all of their intelligence officers were familiar with.

Inferno just wished they'd hurry up and let Red Alert back on duty. His reaction to the turbine-rusted glitch staring unwaveringly at the camera had been troubling, but really, who _wouldn't_ freak out a bit at such an ugly mug?

Inferno's attention was split again many different ways – seen one question session, seen them all. He subsequently missed Jazz's subtle glance at the door to the room, and only caught on again when the figure of Optimus Prime appeared in the camera's field, nodding discreetly to Jazz even while he kept his gaze on their prisoner.

"Hello Starscream," Optimus said politely, deigning to sit in one of the bolted-down chairs across from Starscream, rather than lean casually on the table as Jazz had. Starscream affixed his new _guest_ with an openly wary, and derisive, stare.

"Come to finally relieve your incompetent staff, have you?" he sneered, standing behind the chair he was meant to be seated in, hands and feet shackled, weapons stripped, and thrusters plugged. He was as harmless as a mech could get without being completely paralyzed, yet his words were still as sharp as laser-fire.

"Megatron has yet to request your return, Starscream," Optimus said. Starscream seemed to come up short, forgetting whatever insult he was about to unleash. But if nothing else, Starscream was fast.

"Unlike Autobots," he hissed, "Decepticons do not waste valuable time and energy on freeing captives." Said captive finally sat, violently, in the chair provided, optics narrowed in apparent dislike at the mech who wouldn't rise to his bait. "Megatron will not negotiate. For anyone or anything. He takes by _force_ whatever he requires." The passionate flare of red optics made Inferno temporarily glance away from the feed, but he was pulled back by Prime's laughter. The shocked look on Starscream's previously rapturous face was worth it.

"Can it be," Optimus said once he was done chuckling, "that I know more about Megatron than his loyal second does?" Starscream looked murderous for a brief moment, but was less than adept at hiding the rather greedy, hopeful look that flickered across his face before he reined it back again. A look that Optimus Prime obviously caught as well, from how his body locked into place, frozen for an instant in some unknowable emotion.

"So," Starscream ventured slowly. "He _has_ asked for me."

"No." The answer was fast, and brutal. So abrupt was the reply, Inferno imagined he saw Starscream flinch. It had to have been his imagination however, because Starscream was smirking again, wings flicking upward conceitedly the very next moment.

"Then why are you here, Optimus Prime?" he asked smoothly, leaning forward to stare at the Autobot commander, optics bright with interest and mirth. "Are we finally going to get to the _real_ interrogation?" Optimus was quiet for just long enough to leave Starscream frowning, about to speak again.

"I wanted to thank you," the Prime interrupted, leaving the seeker agog once more.

"… _Thank_ me…?"

"Yes." A nod. "I never got the opportunity, before, to express my gratitude." Starscream looked less eager and more wary, as if Prime were degenerating into madness before him. Optimus continued. "Although I'm certain you never intended it as anything so… ah, merciful… the fact remains that I probably wouldn't have escaped the Decepticon base and Megatron's gentle care, without you."

Starscream's reaction was so violent that Inferno tripped an alarm. Optimus had nothing but a shallow scratch across his chest by the time the seeker was pacified and their beloved leader taken from the room. Inferno was distracted by all the activity on multiple feeds, and so didn't see the same thing Jazz did, although later review of the recorded incident would confirm everyone's suspicions.

Optimus was ushered out of the room by concerned Autobots. Starscream was immediately swarmed and treated with medical magnets to put him into sedation. The two did not once look away from the other's optics until the door finally slid shut, and cut them off from each other.


	4. My Wish Your Command

The little archivist was inconsequential. Utterly unimportant and useless, in every way. Yet Starscream still found himself intrigued. Why had the groundpounder followed him around, plainly terrified (as he should be) but still obedient as a drone? It was a puzzle that Starscream should have found beneath him, but it somehow managed to hijack his thoughts. It was going to interfere with his plans, at this rate. He needed his mind clear, especially with that upstart in Kaon leaving vague, tantalizing promises in his comm cache every other rotation lately. That he interspersed those promises with even vaguer threats was not lost on Starscream.

So, naturally, he had to get it out of his system, one way or another.

"Um… here's your receipt…" Orion Pax was hesitant, more hesitant than he would have been with any other customer – especially one with such a small order. But it was in Iacon, and he wasn't about to turn down an excuse to visit his favorite city.

The offered datapad was ignored by Starscream, who had taken to studying Orion once again, leaving the archivist fidgeting a little under his scrutiny. It was oddly appealing.

"Who are you?" Starscream demanded.

Had the seeker forgotten already? "Orion Pax."

"No, that's not what I-…" The dismissive hand stalled in midair, and the seeker's optics were focused unnervingly on Orion, yet somehow distant as well. Before the courier-archivist could ask what he _had_ meant, Starscream continued in a contemplative murmur.

"… Maybe that's the point," the seeker mused aloud. "A nobody. Feh."

Orion would have been insulted, if it wasn't true. As it was, his pride stung a little, but it was nothing sharp enough to drown out the ache of curiosity. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, sir."

Sir. How long had it been since he had been called sir? Too long.

"So, Orion Pax," he purred, stepping closer to the mech, optics narrowing in satisfaction as his smaller prey flinched, but stood his ground. "Does your employer give you leisure time?"

"Oh, yes."

"When?"

Orion paused for the first time. "… That's rather personal, sir."

"Forgive me." Perhaps this mech did possess some sense of self-preservation after all. Starscream grinned and leaned away marginally, so that he was no longer looming over the archivist. His efforts were rewarded when Orion relaxed a little more. "I was only curious. I wouldn't want to… keep you from _enjoying_ your leisure time."

Orion shook his head, his easy smile reappearing. "No sir," he answered politely. "And if I may be so bold, do you often spend your time in the Iacon database? I only ask," he added hastily, seeing the dark look on Starscream's face and realizing that he was too forward, "because I myself spend my leisure breaks at the databanks… but I don't often have an excuse to travel so far."

Starscream was by no means ignorant to this archivist's interest, tentative and innocent though it was. He couldn't pin down what it was about this mech that continued to hold his attention, when so little else had ever managed to do more than distract him for a moment from his larger goals, but at least it seemed to operate in both directions. This Orion Pax seemed to be smitten by him. And really, Starscream wouldn't blame him.

They were drawn to each other, that was obvious, and Starscream was more than willing to brush it off as an inconsequential anomaly. But seeing the younger, smaller archivist standing before him, obviously so ignorant of why he had just propositioned a seeker… it stirred the first pangs of empathy in Starscream's spark. He took pity on the bot.

"I've found myself preoccupied by a certain project," Starscream finally answered. Once again, he took the time to look Orion Pax over, and was again disturbed that what he found wasn't wholly displeasing. "I am, however, unfamiliar with Iacon's method of organization. Perhaps, then, I might call on your particular skills to assist me…?"

It was disgusting how quickly the archivist accepted.

Yet, not quite as disgusting as Orion Pax's boundless, eager enthusiasm as the archivist… "assisted" him. It was not quite a lie, that Starscream was unfamiliar with Iacon's database… but the archives had all been standardized long ago, and one database was much like any other. Starscream did not technically need the assistance at all – a fact that Orion Pax had to be aware of. But the smaller bot seemed quite happy to ignore that, seemingly content with simply basking in the seeker's presence.

The only thing marring their little outing was the other patrons' gazes, varying from annoyed to horrified, all of which Starscream utterly ignored. He was used to such treatment within the confines of most Cybertronian cities.

Orion Pax, unfortunately, was not so immune. For a bot whose function often went unnoticed, the amount of attention they were gaining was… unsettling. And it showed in the way he glanced away, even as he explained to Starscream how the information was not listed by authorship, but in categorical order according to subject, broken up into various sub-categories, then factual and creative tags…

Starscream only paid attention when his archivist's speech faltered and trailed off; only looked away from Orion Pax when movement in his peripheral vision alerted him to an intruder approaching. An intruder that was not deterred by his sudden turn to glare, like any reasonably sane mecha would be. Instead, he startled Orion into complete silence, and made the interloper stop in his tracks, a scowl on his faceplates.

"You shouldn't be here," the mech said. Now that Starscream bothered to look, he saw archivist glyphs on his shoulders. The seeker bristled, ready to defend himself – but realized this stranger was looking at Orion Pax, instead of him. Confused, Starscream wound up saying nothing.

Orion glanced between Starscream and his fellow archivist, uttered an uncertain "I'm sorry…?"

"You shouldn't be here," the archivist repeated, daring the quickest glance at the seeker standing nearly double their height and clearly displeased.

"I don't understand…" Orion Pax murmured, polite and deferential as usual. The other only scowled more.

"With _him_," the archivist hissed, and Starscream's anti-grav engines gave a subsonic warning rumble that made both archivists cringe, and surrounding patrons retreat with frightened glares. "Why would you bring him here, brother?" the archivist continued bravely. "This is a mistake."

"I'd remind you-" Starscream hissed and took a step forward – only to be cut off as Orion's body pushed in between him and his target.

"-That the Archives are for use of _all_ of Cybertron," Orion continued from Starscream's start. "How dare you?" He advanced, and the interloper retreated, looking suddenly wary. Starscream wished he could see Orion's face, but the bot's back was turned to him. "Knowing that, how dare you try to deny light to a Seeker?"

Starscream startled nearly as badly as the other archivist, who turned and walked stiffly away with a dismissive and irritated huff, no doubt to lick his wounds in private now that he had been rebuffed.

Orion used the old word for Starscream's model-line. Its glyph-sound was imprinted with a slightly different meaning than the current, less respectful (in Starscream's opinion) designation of seeker. A seeker was a military flight model, used for patrols and guard duty, and often considered not worth the lavish amount of fuel they consumed.

A Seeker was a hunter, the terrifying aerial force that tracked down the last of their old foes and obliterated them long after the grounders had pushed the invaders from Cybertron's surface. A seeker was merely a model-line that happened to have wings – to be a Seeker was a title and honor, and nothing less.

Starscream stood where he was, face a mask of confusion. Orion Pax turned back towards him once he was satisfied that their interruption had retreated, and Starscream was further surprised to see a flash of smug determination on that face, gone before he could properly study it. But he was sure it had been there. His interest notched higher.

Orion Pax flashed him an apologetic smile and tried to continue with his "lesson".

"Stop." Starscream stalled him with a raised hand. "No more of this."

Before Orion could open his mouth to protest, no doubt to apologize for the behavior of his fellow archivist and persuade Starscream that he did in fact belong here, Starscream cut him off again.

"I grow weary of these cramped conditions," the seeker – _Seeker_ – explained. Orion looked up at the high, vaulted ceilings, and wondered.

"You will accompany me." It was an order. Not giving Orion Pax the time to question, Starscream about-faced and strode with confidence away from the Hall of Records. To his immense satisfaction, he heard the distinct staccato tap of Orion's footfalls rushing to catch up with him and falling into formation at his side.

"Where are we going?" the archivist asked. Starscream smirked, and did not look at him.

"Why, my _dear_ friend," he purred. "We are going to get drinks, of course."


End file.
